Pakistan faces US wrath, lands on America’s export blacklist

The United States has added six subsidiaries of Inspur Group to its export restriction list, along with several other Chinese entities, including some based in Pakistan, Geo TV reported. Inspur Group is a leading Chinese cloud computing and big data company.

According to the US Commerce Department, these Inspur units were blacklisted for assisting in the development of supercomputers for China’s military. Five of them are in China, while one is in Taiwan. Inspur Group was already added to the list in 2023.

The Inspur units are among 80 companies and institutes added to the US export ban list on Tuesday. According to Geo News, more than 50 are based in China, while others are in Taiwan, Iran, Pakistan, South Africa, and the UAE.

The restrictions aim to limit China’s progress in high-performance computing, quantum technology, and advanced AI, as well as slow down its development of hypersonic weapons.

“We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.

In response to the move, the Chinese embassy in Washington said on Tuesday that it “firmly opposes these acts taken by the US and demands that it immediately stop using military-related issues as pretexts to politicise, instrumentalise and weaponise trade and tech issues.”

The US adds companies to the Commerce Department’s Entity List over national security or foreign policy concerns. These companies cannot sell goods without special licences, which are usually denied.

Commerce official Jeffrey Kessler said the goal is to stop US technology from being used for high-performance computing, hypersonic missiles, military aircraft training, and drones that pose a security threat.